New Beardy Owner Looking for Guidance!

[Mmantsiane]

Good morning All! Excited to be here! While not super new the world of reptile ownership I am new to the Beardy-realm.

I received a 3-year-old female bearded from a friend of the family as they couldn't give her the love and attention she needed. So far she seems to have taken to me and my wife well, but she is glass surfing like crazy. I found a bunch of info saying it could be anything from stress from the new environment to she needs exercising. Working on the latter, trying to let her run around the house a little bit until we get the place "lizard-proofed". Any guidance y'all could provide would be greatly appreciated!

Anyway, the previous owner definitely hooked us up with a solid vivarium, some internal decor, and food. However, I have one concern. There is a cool black, styrofoam wall background that he left in the tank. It looks great, and provides her some additional surface area to climb on, however she is constantly tearing bits off which lands all over the ground and all over her. I have concerns about her ingesting them. Any thoughts about other best practices for her home?

Surely I will have dozens of more questions to come, so for now thanks!

Best,
Charlie

 

[Mmantsiane]

Sorry for the delay. Thank you! I removed it the other day and cleaned out the tank entirely to ensure all traces of that Styrofoam were gone. We have a 100w basking bulb and a 10.0uvb bulb going, with temps hovering between 95-100f throughout the day. We did buy a night heat light which emits a slight purple hue which she seems to enjoy. But yeah definitely no heat mats or rocks! Her surfing seems to have digressed a bit as we try to get her out of the tank a couple times a day for a total of about an hour or so.

However, her diet seems a bit inconsistent. Do they typically eat only once a day? We dropped a few crickets in the tank the other day but she seems unimpressed by them. She loves the superworms though (we lightly coat both of them with calcium powder before feeding). She usually devours 5-6 of them pretty quickly then seems satisfied for the day. The previous owner said she loves kale and strawberries, and while we haven't purchased any strawberries yet, she doesn't seem to care all that much for the kale either. Perhaps the start of her brumation period? Again, any thoughts or input is greatly appreciated!

Happy New Year All!

 

[Mmantsiane]

Hi Kaylyn, thanks for the help! We have her in a solid setup finally. We got her a little more space in a bigger tank, and a new light fixture for a T5HO tube (night heat light gone). She has been highly receptive thus far.

She's still very picky about her food though. She generally won't eat unless handfed, and almost exclusively peppers. She will eat collard greens, kale, bok choy if it stuck to the peppers, but otherwise avoids them. We had brief success with acorn squash. Of course, there is no hesitation when it comes to superworms.